CHAPTER IX.
I have described the peculiar ceremony attending the burial of youth inMizora. Old age, in some respects, had a similar ceremony, but thefuneral of an aged person differed greatly from what I had witnessed atthe grave of youth. Wauna and I attended the funeral of a very agedlady. Death in Mizora was the gradual failing of mental and physicalvigor. It came slowly, and unaccompanied with pain. It was receivedwithout regret, and witnessed without tears.
The daughters performed the last labor that the mother required. Theyarrayed her body for burial and bore it to the grave. If in that seasonof the year, autumn leaves hid the bier, and formed the covering andpillow of her narrow bed. If not in the fall, full-blown roses andmatured flowers were substituted.
The ceremony was conducted by the eldest daughter, assisted by theothers. No tears were shed; no mourning worn; no sorrowful chanting. Asolemn dirge was sung indicative of decay. A dignified solemnitybefitting the farewell to a useful life was manifest in all theproceedings; but no demonstrations of sorrow were visible. The mournerswere unveiled, and performed the last services for their mother withcalmness. I was so astonished at the absence of mourning that I asked anexplanation of Wauna.
"Why should we mourn," was the surprising answer, "for what isinevitable? Death must come, and, in this instance, it came in itsnatural way. There is nothing to be regretted or mourned over, as therewas in the drowning of my young friend. Her life was suddenly arrestedwhile yet in the promise of its fruitfulness. There was cause for grief,and the expressions and emblems of mourning were proper and appropriate.But here, mourning would be out of place, for life has fulfilled itspromises. Its work is done, and nature has given the worn-out body rest.That is all."
That sympathy and regret which the city had expressed for the youngdead was manifested only in decorum and respectful attendance at thefuneral. No one appeared to feel that it was an occasion for mourning.How strange it all seemed to me, and yet there was a philosophy about itthat I could not help but admire. Only I wished that they believed as Idid, that all of those tender associations would be resumed beyond thegrave. If only they could be convinced. I again broached the subject toWauna. I could not relinquish the hope of converting her to my belief.She was so beautiful, so pure, and I loved her so dearly. I could notgive up my hope of an eternal reunion. I appealed to her sympathy.
"What hope," I asked, "can you offer those whose lives have been onlysuccessive phases of unhappiness? Why should beings be created only tolive a life of suffering, and then die, as many, very many, of my peopledo? If they had no hope of a spiritual life, where pain and sorrow areto be unknown, the burdens of this life could not be borne."
"You have the same consolation," replied Wauna, "as the Preceptress hadin losing her daughter. That daring spirit that cost her her life, wasthe pride of her mother. She possessed a promising intellect, yet hermother accepts her death as one of the sorrowful phases of life, andbravely tries to subdue its pain. Long ages behind us, as my mother hastold you, the history of all human life was but a succession of woes.Our own happy state has been evolved by slow degrees out of thatsorrowful past. Human progress is marked by blood and tears, and theheart's bitterest anguish. We, as a people, have progressed almostbeyond the reach of sorrow, but you are in the midst of it. You mustwork for the future, though you cannot be of it."
"I cannot," I declared, "reconcile myself to your belief. I am separatedfrom my child. To think I am never to see it in this world, nor throughendless ages, would drive me insane with despair. What consolation canyour belief offer _me_?"
"In this life, you may yearn for your child, but after this life yousleep," answered Wauna, sententiously. "And how sweet that sleep! Nodreams; no waking to work and trial; no striving after perfection; noplanning for the morrow. It is oblivion than which there can be nohappier heaven."
"Would not meeting with those you have loved be happier?" I asked, inamazement.
"There would be happiness; and there would be work, too."
"But my religion does not believe in work in heaven," I answered.
"Then it has not taken the immutable laws of Nature into consideration,"said Wauna. "If Nature has prepared a conscious existence for us afterthis body decays, she has prepared work for us, you may rest assured. Itmight be a grander, nobler work; but it would be work, nevertheless.Then, how restful, in contrast, is our religion. It is eternal,undisturbable rest for both body and brain. Besides, as you sayyourself, you cannot be sure of meeting those whom you desire to meet inthat other country. They may be the ones condemned to eternal sufferingfor their sins. Think you I could enjoy myself in any surroundings, whenI knew that those who were dear to me in this life, were enduringtorment that could have no end. Give me oblivion rather than such aheaven.
"Our punishment comes in this world; but it is not so much through sinas ignorance. The savages lived lives of misery, occasioned by theirlack of intelligence. Humanity must always suffer for the mistakes itmakes. Misery belongs to the ignorant; happiness to the wise. That isour doctrine of reward and punishment."
"And you believe that my people will one day reject all religions?"
"When they are advanced enough," she answered. "You say you havescholars among you already, who preach their inconsistencies. What doyou call them?"
"Philosophers," was my reply.
"They are your prophets," said Wauna. "When they break the shackles thatbind you to creeds and dogmas, they will have done much to advance you.To rely on one's own _will_ power to do right is the only safe road tomorality, and your only heaven."
I left Wauna and sought a secluded spot by the river. I was shockedbeyond measure at her confession. It had the earnestness, and, to me,the cruelty of conviction. To live without a spiritual future inanticipation was akin to depravity, to crime and its penalty of prisonlife forever. Yet here was a people, noble, exalted beyond myconceiving, living in the present, and obeying only a duty to posterity.I recalled a painting I had once seen that always possessed for me ahorrible fascination. In a cave, with his foot upon the corpse of ayouth, sat the crowned and sceptered majesty of Death. The waters ofoblivion encompassed the throne and corpse, which lay with its head andfeet bathed in its waters--for out of the Unknown had life come, and tothe Unknown had it departed. Before me, in vision, swept the mightystream of human life from which I had been swept to these strangeshores. All its sufferings, its delusions; its baffled struggles; itswrongs, came upon me with a sense of spiritual agony in them thatreligion--my religion, which was their only consolation--must vanish inthe crucible of Science. And that Science was the magician that was topurify and exalt the world. To live in the Present; to die in it andbecome as the dust; a mere speck, a flash of activity in the far,limitless expanse of Nature, of Force, of Matter in which a spiritualideal had no part. It was horrible to think of. The prejudices ofinherited religious faith, the contracted forces of thought in which Ihad been born and reared could not be uprooted or expanded without pain.
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